Eurasian Eagle-Owl, General News, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Celebrity Bird Mythology

When I first started watching Pale Male and the Red-tailed Hawk nest at 927 Fifth Avenue in 2005, I had my first experience with a celebrity bird. I learned then that the public perception of Pale Male didn’t match his reality. Rather than observing Pale Male people wanted to repeat back what they had learned from Marie Winn’s book, Red-tails in Love or Frederic Lilien’s movies, Pale Male and The Legend of Pale Male.

I would observe Pale Male in Central Park’s Ramble drinking water and taking a bath and then walk to the “hawk bench”, which had a great view of 927 Fifth Avenue and the nearby buildings. When I would relay this information to Pale Male fans, I would often have people question my observations. Generally, these were people who only came to watch Pale Male a few weeks a year, and only from the hawk bench. They would say “hawks don’t drink water”. Hawks, especially eyasses on the nest, can get all the water they need from their food, but once off the nest, if given a chance they will drink water. But a group of folks had taken this to mean they don’t drink water at all, and believed it to gospel.

This happened with lots of other observation as well. It always frustrated me because I thought the greatest joy of watching Pale Male and his family was that we got to make direct observations year round of species and learn more than was ever possible just reading. Watching him was so great because every day was different, and I saw things I had never read about in books. For example, If a newly fledged offspring was being mobbed, Pale Male would come in and get the jays to go after him. Or how each year, he would hunt around the Alexander Hamilton statue in the fall after the apples began to fall as it attracted rodents. Or how he would be out of sight, but if his mate called for him to relieve her on the nest, he would quickly arrive and often have food.

These direct observations, and sharing and debating their meaning with others in person, was the joy of watching Pale Male.

I also learned early on that the folks crafting him public image, had a vested interest in molding his image. I created this blog, because Marie Winn who I had been sharing photographs for her Central Park Nature News website, refused to publish a wonderful series of photograph of Pale Male eating a Brown Rat. She said to me, “these pictures would upset my audience”. It was a nice lesson to learn. That folks who rode the coattails of a celebrity bird had a vested interest to only report the “bright side”.

Sadly, this “bright side” distortion and a failure of the general public to question the reporting, is occurring today. It is even worse now that the communications have shifted from blogs to social media.

When I got back from California in late November, I ran into a number that of people who said the reason Flaco left Central Park was because of crows and hawk. Of the any number of reasons Flaco left the park, this is low on the list.

I asked folks, why they thought this and they said they had read it on the Manhattan Bird alert. So, I looked at X. This is the set of posts from David Barrett.

I believe Mr. Barrett crafted a response to answer criticism of his reporting the roost locations of Flaco in the North Woods, rather than giving a scientifically based answer. I was in California on the two days Flaco returned to the park, but many experienced birders felt the crowds on both days bothered him, and might have contributed to his leaving the park again.

So, I’d like to give an alternative perspective.

  1. Flaco was harassed by many birds during his nine months of roosting in Central Park. Crows, Blue Jays, Red-tailed Hawks, Baltimore Orioles and Northern Mockingbirds among others. It was a daily occurrence, and quite natural. Flaco held his own in the face of these attacks. I doubt these attacks were ever the reason he shifted roosts. He’s an apex predator!
    As far as the Tennis Court roosts go, I think most of us who watched him during that period, saw Flaco be very aggressive with a Red-tailed Hawk who was working to claim the area. In the end, Flaco drove the hawk away, and once he did he returned to his preferred American Elm. So, it is more likely that Flaco forced the Red-tailed Hawk to relocate then the other way around.
  2. Flaco did and does get disturbed by human observers. David’s statement that he doesn’t is false. It’s common sense that birds and animals get disturbed by human observers. Everyone knows this. Birders work hard to minimize their impact. With owls it is common practice not to share their roosting locations publicly to protect the owls from being disturbed during the day. All of the true bird alerts run by the NYC community (rather than David Barrett’s self run Manhattan Bird Alert), have rules against reporting owl roost locations. (And why does Mr. Barrett use the royal “we”?)
    While it was possible to watch Flaco without disturbing him, there were many inexperienced or very aggressive owl watchers who did disturb him. You would see him be awoken midday and see his change in body posture. He also hated the off leash dogs people brought under his roosts. There was even a time where an observer took a stick to wake Flaco up so he could photograph him awake.
    Flaco’s returning to a roost location day after day, or any owl (such the Saw-whet Owl in Shakespeare Garden, Geraldine (Great Horned Owl) or Barry (Barred Owl) shouldn’t be used as a way to justify publicizing a roost location. Rationalizing irresponsible behavior by saying “Well if the owl didn’t like people, they would move”, doesn’t cut it. I doubt the subject of roost location has been studied well enough to determine the instinctual reasons why birds choose a specific roost and what makes them abandon a location.
  3. Why Flaco left the park most likely isn’t because he was being mobbed. If it really bothered him, he would have left months ago. There were a great number of factors to consider about why he left the park.

    a. As the days got shorter, a male Eurasian Eagle-Owl would become more focused on securing his territory, investigating to see if there was a competitor nearby, and looking for an appropriate nesting location. Early November was the perfect time for these instincts to be awakened in Flaco. His looking for a mate would start a bit later. Central Park doesn’t have a suitable nest location for Flaco.
    Eurasian Eagle-Owls don’t build nests. They use cliffs, take over other raptor nests, and in some very rural locations nest on the ground. In European cities, they have nested on Cathedrals and in one case even used someone’s flower box.
    So, after Flaco discovered quiet gardens and the backs of buildings to roost on during his first trip away from the park, and after coming back for two days with his regular roosts surrounded by noisy people and being mobbed by birds, he may have realized his best options was to roost in a quiet block, but still stay close to Central Park where he can still hunt. Many of us hope that he continues to roost near Central Park, and then hunt in the park, where the rodents are less likely to have rodenticide.

    But since Flaco is an exception to the rule, it is hard to know what he’s doing. Will he take longer trips away, say to other areas of Manhattan, when it is closer to his time to mate? We just have to wait and see.

    b. The trees were just starting to lose their leaves when Flaco left, and by now his regular root trees are bare. This could have made the park less attractive than it was this summer. (Update 12/20/23: Another factor may be the windy weather. Flaco has been roosting in light wells on the back of buildings on both the Upper East and Upper West Sides. These might be giving him protection from the wind and be warmer as the temperatures drop rather than roosting in a tree without leaves.)

    c. As Flaco becomes more used to his environment, he should start behaving more and more like a wild Eurasian Eagle-Owl rather than a feral bird. Central Park is 3.41 km2 and Manhattan is 59 km2 in size. Scientific studies about Eurasian Eagle-Owl territory sizes are limited but the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity has an excellent open access paper, Analysis of Home Range of Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) by WT-100. The home ranges varied from 4.2 km2 to 39.1 km2 for the owls studied in the paper. So, we should have expected Flaco to expand his range beyond Central Park’s 3.41 km2. There didn’t need to be any reason he left Central Park, other than it was a smaller territory than would have been natural for an Eurasian Eagle-Owl.

Flaco is becoming much harder to find these days. His was seen just inside the park on Saturday night, and was seen the previous two Saturday’s along Central Park West. He has gone undetected on many days. When and if he returns to roosting in the park, we should take care not to love him too much.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Upper West Side IV

Flaco was heard and seen on a few building on the Upper West Side on Saturday evening. I caught up with him just as he left the rear of the Beresford Apartments. He then flew to 241 Central Park West. I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn’t stay long. Reports are he flew into the park as his next stop.

It’s been hit or miss on Central Park West this week. Last Saturday and tonight, he was hooting and easy to find. But on two nights, we only saw him for a few minutes. And on a few nights, not at all. It was a lot easier to figure out what he was doing when he was in Central Park.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Upper West Side III

Tonight, I only got to see Flaco for a few seconds. I had set my camera to record 241 Central Park West, as that was his first stop on Tuesday, but he ended up using 5 West 86th Street as his first stop tonight. I couldn’t even get my camera repostioned in time to get good shots of him. Just two blurry and slightly out of focus shots. He flew northwest, but he often loops around after he flys out, so where he went was unclear. A search the area yielded no clues.

When Flaco was roosting in the East Village, he quickly went over half a mile to the Lower East Side by the East River for a few nights. If he is repeating this behavior, he could certainly be going to Riverside Drive as far north as Columbia University. It will be interesting to learn where he’s going.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Upper West Side II

This evening Flaco appeared on two buildings briefly hooting from each, before I lost track of him. He appeared first on 241 Central Park West, at the corner of 84th and Central Park West and then he moved to 5 West 86th Street.

I didn’t catch him leaving 5 West 86th Street, so I don’t know if he left to explore the Upper West Side or go to Central Park to hunt. A few Flaco followers looked for him both inside and outside the park without sucess.

I didn’t have a chance to set up my camera but did get one low resolution shot with him one 241 Central Park West.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Upper West Side

Flaco has had quite the adventure since I last saw him on the Lower East Side on November 9th. He has been seen in a variety of places, the East Village, on a few buildings on Fifth Avenue, back in two familiar roosts in Central Park, and then roosting in at least three locations on the Upper West Side in the ’80s. (I was away on vacation, so I missed seeing any of this.)

After he left Central Park, social media had some crazy reasons for why he left Central Park after two days. The most incredulous was someone defending their posting of his roost locations, by claiming that people don’t bother Flaco, and he must have moved because of American Crows and Hawks. While Flaco most likely didn’t leave Central Park because of people watching him, he does get annoyed by some observers and the standard owl etiquette rules should be honored. The world is full of bad actors, and it makes sense to not advertise the location of a sleeping owl.

Flaco has also held his ground with crows and hawks. I doubt he ever switched roosts because of them. It was suggested that he left his roosts at the Tennis Courts, because of a hawk. But, you could easily make the case that his temporary use of trees north of the Tennis Courts was a way of engaging a Red-tailed Hawk, which he did push away. And after he was successful, he returned to his favorite American Elm.

The reasons Flaco is now exploring Manhattan aren’t entirely clear. He’s a feral bird on the wrong continent, so this is unchartered territory. He certainly wasn’t expected to say in Central Park forever and I’m surprised he didn’t do more exploring earlier in the year.

He has discovered at least two things in the last month. One is that he can hoot from tall buildings and secondly that he can roost in quiet gardens, backyards and at the rear of buildings.

Dedicated Flaco watchers have considered a number of possibilities for why Flaco chose to move in November.

  • As the days got shorter, he may be responding to instinctual pressures to establish a territory and secure an appropriate nesting location. This naturally occurs in the late fall and early winter. (Eurasian Eagle-Owls don’t build nests. They use cliffs, take over other raptor nests or can even nest on the ground.)
  • He’s checking for other owls, which would be both competitive males or potential mates.
  • His roosting locations were beginning to lose their leaves, and were offering less cover than in the summer. He could simply have been looking for a more protected place to roost.

It’s hard to say which is the correct answer or answers. There could be other facters in play as well.

His moving outside of the park does increase his risks of dying. Rodenticides are a major problem for urban owls, especially for Flaco as he continues to have a rodent only diet. So, as he explores there is some concern among those following him.

Tonight was a joy, after so many weeks. It was great to see Flaco after so long, ten months after his release from the zoo.

I started the night watching a block near the American Museum of Natural History. He has been reported roosting there at least four times. I didn’t see him fly out, and I don’t think the five or six other observers saw him either.

I went out to dinner and a friend texted me that she heard Flaco but couldn’t find him around 7 pm. I didn’t see the text until after I got home. So, my evening with Flaco started around 8:30. I missed the crosstown bus, so I walked along the southern end of the Reservoir west. When I got closer to Central Park West, I heard Flaco. After not seeing him for weeks, just hearing him got my heart racing. I hadn’t seen social media reports of his being on 5 West 86th Street, but using sound found him on my own. It was so wonderful to see him.

He then flew to a water tower on the south side of 86th Street closer to Columbus Avenue, 40 West 86th Street. In my photographs, he looks to be in a cage, but he was on a crossbar outside of a ladder with a safety cage. He hooted and hooted. It was impossible to get clean recording of him with the traffic noise, but you could hear him very clearly from the street. Folks out walking their dogs, said he had been heard on Friday night was well.

Flaco then went southeast to a building between 84th and 85th streets, 241 Central Park West. He made one brief hop from one corner to another on the top tower. He hooted for a long time before flying off and gliding to the Great Lawn of Central Park. When we got there he was on a backstop, but quickly flew northeast. He flew low as though he was going to catch something on the lawn, but he couldn’t be relocated. At this point, it was way after Midnight, so the four of us looking for him left before the park closed at 1 am.

We assumed that his returning to the park meant he was most likely hunting there. This was comforting, as the rodents within the park have a much lower risk of being poisoned.

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, Owls

Eurasian Eagle-Owl, In the News

Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl that was released by a vandal (vandals?) on February 2nd, after almost nine months left Central Park and was seen in the East Village and the Lower East Side a few times in early November. He came back uptown to a building perch on Fifth Avenue a few days ago, and on Friday and Saturday roosted back in Central Park. He wasn’t seen on Sunday.

Flaco has been exploited by many humans: the animal activist who released him, the zoo who kept him in a small cage, failed to protect him and then recover him, and the media (both social and traditional) who have perpetuated a false narrative that a feral bird who is at great risk in Manhattan, is now wild and free to live a full rich life.

It is frustrating to see how much he has been exploited, and that he continues to be exploited. Sadly, no one seems to be looking out for Flaco. There were plenty of opportunities to recover him this summer, but the zoo sadly did nothing. Manhattan simply isn’t a safe place for an Eurasian Eagle-Owl. While he’s done much better than expected, he will most likely not survive more than a year or two in the city.

Since he’s been in the news, X (formerly twitter) is full of inaccurate statements about him. I want to comment on a few issues:

His Wandering: Flaco exploration of the island of Manhattan, was to be expected and will continue. It was surprising that he stayed within Central Park for as long as he did. He will make more trips away from the park. He is establishing territory, looking for other owls, and will try to find a mate later in the year.
His hooting, and the fact that he will never find a mate in New York doesn’t mean he’s unhappy. He isn’t heartbroken. No one needs to find him a girlfriend! No one needs to be his matchmaker. He is simply being an owl.

Also, his breeding with another owl species is next to impossible. While breeders have been able to crossbreed both Great Horned and Snowy Owls with Eurasian Eagle-Owls, there are no recorded cases where this has happened naturally.

And of course, if there was a risk of his corrupting the Great Horned or Snowy Owl gene pool, I would suspect tough action would be taken. Either the nest and/or Flaco would be destroyed by wildlife authorities.

Oddly folks came up with some crackpot theories as to why he started roaming, including the fireworks for the NYC Marathon weekend opening. He most likely left before then, and he experienced a week of fireworks around the 4th of July and he didn’t leave the park. He also didn’t leave to find food, as Central Park has more than enough rats.

Of course, the problem of scores of people talking under his roost tree and bringing their dogs, keeping him awake all day while he roosts in Central Park is never discussed on social media. People are happy to exploit him by sharing his roost location, which is something that birders do not normally do. Flaco watchers are happy to bother him, and then say “It’s OK, he was used to people because he was in the zoo.”

Safety: Most of Manhattan isn’t a safe place for owls to live. Currently, Manhattan only has breeding owls in Inwood Hill Park. Otherwise, owls that survive here just come for the winter or are passing through the area.
In Central Park, the reintroduced Eastern Screech-Owls all died or left, and the longest any larger owl has stayed and survived in Central Park in recent years is under 18 months.

Rodenticides are a major issue for owls and raptors in the Manhattan, and in urban areas across the nation. It is a constant threat and many deaths assumed to be from accidents are due to impairment from ingesting rodenticides. So, the number of cases is under reported.

2nd generation rodenticides are anticoagulants that cause the rats to die due to internal bleeding. They can take 2-12 days to take effect, and those that eat non-lethal doses can retain the poisons in their livers for months. (Rats live in colonies, and if a rat dies due to eating something, the other rats learn to avoid that food. So, the longer the poison takes to kill a rodent, the more effective it is. But this makes it deadlier to raptors.) Eating just one rat that has been poisoned, may be enough to kill a bird. And since a poisoned rat is easier to catch since it is lethargic, the chances of catching a deadly one increases.

Vehicular traffic is also an issue. Owls have large eyes, but their movement is fixed. They must move their heads to see in different directions. While flying this restricts their field of view and makes them susceptible to collisions. Flaco sometimes would cross the west drive of Central Park only a few feet off the ground, so this is a major concern now that he is leaving the park.

Weather: Flaco lived in an outdoor enclosure at the Zoo, so he’s used to our climate. Eurasian Eagle-Owls live in a wide range, some much colder than New York. So, no one needs to worry about him this winter.
He did have some issues cooling down this summer and would need to cool down after flights on hot days. But he handled those hot nights without a problem.

Rat Control: Owls and other raptors do not have any impact on the rodent population of New York City. There are simply too many Brown Rats and not enough raptors. To put it into perspective, there are estimated to be 3 million Brown Rats in New York City. While it’s cute to call him the #ratczar, he has absolutely no impact on the rodent population.

His weight and health: While those of us who watched him eat multiple White-footed Mice on a single night, joked he was now Gordo (fat is Spanish), rather than Flaco (skinny in Spanish), he has most likely not gained any appreciable weight. He was fed well in the zoo. To make the case that he has gained weight, observers have been using random pictures of Flaco. They aren’t comparing apples to apples. Owls can fluff their feathers in cold weather to stay warm, and Flaco when he is very relaxed and cold can look very plump. I’ve taken hundreds of hours of video, starting from the night he was released, and I can attest to the fact that he hasn’t changed in size.

Many people have also commented that he looks healthier out of his cage. However, he was perfectly healthy on the day of his release. Back in February, there was a concern that he might have had poor muscle tone, due to his small enclosure. However, this turned out not to be a problem. His early issues landing and branching in trees, were due to his inexperience maneuvering in trees, not due to his muscle tone. He spent many hours, during the first few evenings in Hallett Sanctuary, practicing branching. He was a quick learner and soon moved on to hooting and learning to hunt.

He did break a few feathers during the few first week, including a primary, but after molting this summer, he looked great again.

Escaped or Released? Flaco has his cage cut open, so I believe is most accurate to say he was released rather than escaped. It was disturbing to learn how poor the zoo security was managed, and that no reward was offered to catch the person who let Flaco go.

Wild or Feral? Flaco isn’t a wild bird. He was raised in captivity and released in the largest city in the United States. While he as adapted to his new conditions, he is a domesticated bird that was released into an urban environment free of other Eurasian Eagle-Owls. It is inaccurate to he’s wild and free.

Tagged? On X individuals insisted on saying Flaco was tagged last week. He is not banded and he has no radio or GPS tags.

His future was never binary: The simplistic argument has always been “zoo bad”, “wild good” on social media. This fits well within the character limits of X, but there were better alternatives. Instead of sabotaging his capture, which happened in February, people could have worked to find a better home for Flaco. He could have been rescued and public pressure could easily have been directed at the zoo to find a better home for him. The choice wasn’t limited to either returning him to a small cage or letting him roam free and most likely die in under two years.

Instead, irresponsible individuals published the location and plans of the rescues. When the public should have been encouraged to stay out the way of the teams working to capture Flaco, crowds interfered with the rescues. Some individuals even went as far as to harass the rescuers, both by creating a scene to prevent one rescue and by calling in death threats against the rehabbers who were assisting the zoo.

This summer when it would have been possible to resume working to recover Flaco, the zoo took a cowardly route, choosing an option that was best for the public relations of the zoo, over what was best for Flaco.